


Joss-verse Ficlets

by Todesengel



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:40:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Todesengel/pseuds/Todesengel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Largely unconnected ficlets set in worlds created by Joss Whedon. Ratings go from gen to mature depending on ficlet; ratings and warnings will be posted in the chapter summaries. Characters and prompts in the chapter titles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Firefly (Inara)

Mal calls her a whore because he thinks it hurts her, and he _wants_ to hurt her on some level of his less-than-complex psyche, Inara knows this. She represents all that he hates. She is the epitome of Alliance indulgence, of Alliance arrogance. All that training in how to be a Companion -- not just in sex, but in conversation, in social skills, in dancing and music and language and philosophy. All that training to learn how to put a client at ease, how to be exactly what a client needs, how to lose herself -- her identity -- beneath the image the client paid for.

It's everything Mal hates, and she knows it, and sometimes she really does regret ever setting eyes on _Serenity_ and her captain. Sometimes she thinks about leaving and going back to a core planet and living a life more suited for her talents.

But then she remembers the look on Mal's face when he realized that the only reason he and Zoe were released from the Sheriff's office was because of _her_ credentials.

And that makes everything worthwhile.


	2. Firefly (Kaylee on Simon/Mal)

Kaylee sat down and felt a little bit like she couldn't breathe. She was sure that it was shock and she would have asked Simon about it except that Simon was the reason that she was feeling so light-headed.

A part of her was so terribly angry that she couldn't see. How, she wanted to scream, and Why? and When? She thought Simon had known about her feelings; she was _sure_ that Mal had known. _Ta ma de,_ **Jayne** knew how she felt.

But a part of her -- the larger part -- couldn't help but noticing how happy Mal looked, kissing Simon like that. The only time Mal looked that happy was when he was baiting Alliance-sympathizers.

Kaylee sighed and wished she didn't love her captain quite so much.


	3. Firefly (Jayne/Mal/Jayne's hat)

There was, Jayne knew, a time and a place for things. Like the whole Simon-River thing -- there had been a time to turn them in, when he'd thought that he'd get that shiny reward, and now there was a time to be nice to them so that Mal wouldn't throw him out the airlock.

A time and a place and even though it hurt him to do so he knew that this wasn't the time or the place to be wearing his momma's hat.

He took it off slowly and set it down on the chair.

"Thank you," Mal said, and he kissed Jayne nicely enough to make him forget all about hats and mothers.


	4. Angel the Series (Angel/Doyle)

Doyle hadn't been the love of his afterlife. He'd just been this guy who'd sought him out and shoehorned him onto a path that kept him from snapping and draining the blood out some innocent he rescued. This annoying guy who'd grown on him like a fungus until Angel couldn't really think of a day going by without listening to Doyle sniping about everything. Couldn't think about existing without Doyle, who'd understood perfectly well that guys who tended to go fangy and spiky in the throes of passion needed release too and that there wasn't a lot of ways for them to do that. And maybe Doyle had ended up in his bed almost every night, and maybe Angel began to look forward to hearing Doyle talk to him with a rough voice made rougher by desire.

But Doyle hadn't been his great love.

He'd just been this guy.

Just this guy who'd sounded like home.


	5. Angel the Series (Angel, Wes, the W&H offices, excuse)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crossover-ish with Terry Pratchett's Discworld series

Wes looked so uncomfortable and hesitant when he knocked on the door to Angel's office that for a moment Angel thought the memory spell had somehow worn off and all of the terrible, horrible moments of last year weren't conveniently buried away deep in the Wolfram & Hart vaults. The really, really secret ones that the Senior Partners had in the main office.

"Wes."

"Excuse me Angel, I know you're busy but –"

"No, come on in." Angle pushed away the dreaded paperwork with a sigh of relief. Man he hoped Wesley had something on an upcoming apocalypse. Wasn't there supposed to be a dragon rising somewhere or—

Angel blinked as he realized he just wished the world was about to end.

Well, there was a reason he'd been a drunkard in his life instead of learning how to run the family business, sitting behind a desk somewhere and pouring over all those bits of paper…

"Um. Angel, I have some rather disturbing news and." Wesley coughed and took off his glasses to clean them. A part of Angel wondered if that was something the Council taught all Watchers to do when they were uncomfortable.

"It's ok, Wesley. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it. Hopefully by beheading something."

Man he missed beheadings.

"I don't think it's going to be that simple." Wesley coughed and opened up a slim manila folder. "I've been getting reports that there's a new vampire cult in town and—"

"Ok, so we stake some vamps. That's fine. Not a beheading, but hey—"

"Angel." Wesley's voice had a strange sharpness to it that made Angel stop looking for his good set of axes and look up at Wesley instead.

"Wesley."

"Angel, these vampires…" Wesley sighed, cleaned his glasses again. "Angel, they're calling themselves the Black Ribboners and applying for jobs at kosher butchers."

"They're what?" Angel sat down heavily in his chair. "Seriously?"

"There's a song and serenity prayer." Wesley twiddled with the papers in the folder then looked back up again. "The funny thing is, I'm almost positive that this isn't a sign of an apocalypse."


	6. Angel the Series (Wesley, Blackribboners)

"Tea first, Sarah," the women in the pink twinset and pearls said, flashing Wesley a smile. "Isn't that right, Mr. Wyndam-Price."

"Yes, please." Wesley sat back in the chair – but not too far back, because he wasn't sure he could get out of it if he sank into it's overstuffed deeps – and frankly studied the woman sitting across from him.

Well, he'd seen some strange damn things in his lifetime, and some strange damn vampires, and this one was…not the strangest one at all, because that had to go to Drusilla for sheer craziness, whereas this one. Well, she could have passed for any number of his classmates mothers back when he was just a lad at Harrow, with her dyed blond hair, and her pearls, and her gym-hardened thinness with just a hint of fashionable starvation. She was exceedingly normal, and while that might have been strange before he came to LA, he'd seen many a monster pass as normal during his tenure here.

Many a monster, and not all of them of a demonic origin.

"So, Ms—"

"Call me Susan," Susan said, smiling with just a hint of nervousness under her genteel hostess smile. "Please, no need to be formal here."

"Ah yes, the we're 'all just friends, here' speech." Wesley smiled back, although not genteelly. "I do beg your pardon if it's a bit hard for me to accept that proposition. After all, you are a vampire."

"Of course, but I have taken the oath. 'Not one drop', Mr. Wyndam-Price. 'Not one drop'."

"'Lips that touch ichor shall never touch mine'?" he responded, a bit sarcastically.

"Very good, Mr. Wyndam-Price. I see you know our creed."

"No, I just know the books you've plagiarized." Wesley leaned forward and steepled his hands, placing the fingertips at his lips. "Now, Ms. Anderson, why don't you tell me what this really is about."

The woman smiled, a little sadly, and shook her head. "I swear to you, Mr. Wyndam-Price, that we are a legitimate community organization. We just wish to provide a support work for our members, to integrate with society, to—"

"Rip out throats, drink the blood of innocents, torture, terrorize, and inflict centuries of horror?"

"Mr. Wyndam-Price, if you continue to use such language I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Madam, I would ask you to remember that I do not need an invitation to be here."

"Perhaps not, but common courtesy dictates –"

"And if you really were what you're pretending to be, I'd be more than happy to extend whatever courtesy you'd like. But, Susan," he said, sarcasm dripping off of every syllable, "you are not an upper-class suburban housewife. In fact I happen to know that you once ate an entire hamlet back in 1822, and, quite frankly, I find your very presence in my city highly offensive."

"Mr. Wyndam-Price," she said, tartly and with a flash of the danger and death Wesley knew to be lurking just below the surface, "is it really so difficult to believe that we might be trying to change ourselves?"

"Frankly madam," Wesley said, rising and ignoring the cup of tea that had appeared on the coffee table before him, brought in by this woman's minion, "yes."


	7. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Giles, Oz, cacophony)

"Good lord, what is that noise?" Giles said, his book dangling from his hand as he stared at Oz's laptop where the terrible ... din was coming from. Heavy bass, and techno and above it all this cheery little melody that sounded like it'd been played on a synthesizer.

"Sorry, wrong file." Oz made a motion to shut the music off and Giles stopped him.

"Hold on." He cocked his head, and. Yes, that was truly disturbing. It chilled him to the bones the way apocalypses didn't. "What. What _is_ that?"

"A remix. The theme from Super Mario Brothers and Nine Inch Nail's 'Closer'." Oz didn't exactly smile but the corners of his eyes turned up the way they did when he was amused. "It's kind of mesmerizing."

Giles could only nod.


	8. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Original Characters, fathers & daughters)

"Margaret?" He can't keep the panic completely out of his voice as he calls her name from the door, and the complete normalcy of his home only makes his heart race faster. There have been too many times that he's opened a door on a seemingly normal scene only to find darkness roiling underneath the mundane gloss. "Margaret?"

"In here, Thomas," she calls back from the drawing room, her voice calm and soothing everywhere except on the edges where it trembles like a leaf before a storm.

"I came as soon as I could," he says as he heads towards her. "I'm afraid William wasn't very clear –"

He stops when he sees them, his wife and his daughter, the lights of his life, and he can't quite figure out what's wrong, can't understand what could cause his son to come running down to the Council offices, near hysterical and sobbing something about trouble at home. He expected demons, or black mages, or dark clerics seeking retribution for his part in the Grand War. Not this. Not Margaret and Anne, sitting in the drawing room, their womanly work laid out on their knees, lit up by the late afternoon sun.

He's beginning to get angry – a right good temper at being interrupted in his work, at being frightened by absolutely nothing – when he really sees his daughter for the first time. She's pale and calm and sad, and she looks so very old in this instance that he knows. With the terrible breadth of his soul, he knows.

"Oh Daddy," she sobs as he crosses to her, sounding desolate and alone. "Daddy."

"Hush, my darling," he croons to her as he gathers her in his arms. "Hush-a-bye, now, my pet." He strokes her hair and feels the unnatural strength within her frail form. "Hush, love, hush."

"Oh Daddy, I'm so afraid."

"Everything will be all right, dearest. I'll –" he begins, but he stops because he doesn't know what to say. Everything will not be all right – nothing will be all right, ever, all that is good has been sucked from them in the time it takes for one girl to die and another to be called.

For his girl to be called.

His daughter.

His precious Anne, who was only just beginning to blossom into womanhood, who was only just fourteen years old.

Just like all those other girls, in all those other times. Just like the girl who died, like the girl who would come when his Anne died, and for the first time Thomas feels the heavy, aching unfairness of the world. To ask some child to fight for them all – to ask some father's daughter to face all the terrors and nightmares of humanity –

A heavy hand on his shoulder makes him look up. "Giles. We'll take over from here."

"Cartwright, this is my _daughter_ ," he says, as if that will somehow make a difference. He knows it won't, and so does Cartwright, who smiles sadly at him, but without compassion.

"She is the Slayer, Thomas," he says, softly, as Hodgkins and young Featherstone-Bly pry Anne from his arms and lead her gently away.

"Please," he begs. "Please, not her."

"It must be her. I am so sorry, Thomas. So very, very sorry."

At least there were no words about honor and glory, no platitudes to gild the fact that his daughter has just died.

Thomas watches the men – his friends, his colleagues – take his daughter away, and it is so very, very strange to be on the other side now. To be the bewildered and frightened father watching strangers lead his precious daughter away to an unknown fate. Except he knows the fate that lies in store, knows his daughter's future, and so he cries, weeps, wails, in the golden light of the dying afternoon.

Cries hot, endless tears for his daughter, who is doomed.


	9. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Vamp!Xander, Angel, Wishverse)

It'd been thirty-six days since his last meal, and that was six longer than the last time they'd done this to him. Thirty-six days since he'd last fed, thirty-six days since he'd tasted blood that wasn't his own, and he didn't know if he could hold out for thirty-seven.

A door clanged at the top of the stairs, and he smelled her the minute she entered the room – hot and rich and alive and he was crowding up against the bars because all he knew was there was life at the top of those stairs.

Blond hair and blues eyes and she still fought even though she'd been bled before. The smell of her made him –

"Bad puppy."

An iron cross slammed against the bars and he hissed and backed away, glaring up at the boy smirking down at him. He snarled at the boy, who laughed and bent down.

"Is puppy hungry? I've brought you a special treat." The boy brought the girl forward, forced her head back until her throat lay exposed, long and white and he inched forward, wanting, needing.

The boy pulled her just out of his reach, licked the pulsing, dancing line of her vein, his eyes full of cruel humor. "Uh, uh, uh, puppy. Ask nicely."

He crawled to the bars. "Please," he begged. "Please."


	10. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Vamp!Xander, Spike, Wishverse)

The problem with kids today was that they had no respect. Of course, okay, Vampire so the whole lack of respect thing was sort of a given but still. No respect, not even when they were facing the biggest, baddest, meanest sod to stride unconsecrated grounds.

O' course, it all worked out nicely in the end for him, what with now he had all of these bodies with their lovely pockets to be rifling through. No cash, but three of 'em had cigs worth smoking – and he couldn't help but sneer at the other two who'd been carryin' about packets of Lights; like they were afraid of lung cancer or some such shit – and he was just finishing taking a nice watch off of one of them when some bastard gave him a right good kick along the face.

Spike rolled with the blow and stood up. There was blood in his mouth and while he did tend to spend a goodly portion of his time trying to find ways to put blood in his mouth he was generally looking for someone else's blood.

"Oi," he said, and spat to one side. "What's all this then?"

The boy facing him – and Spike had to roll his eyes because there were certain types who could pull off the bad and the black and while this kid looked good enough in the leather pants he was definitely going to have to lose the eyeliner and black nail polish before he started giving the legitimately Bad a bad name – shot him a look of utter disbelief.

"Excuse me? You come into my town, beat up _my_ minions and you want to know 'what all this'—" and the pathetic attempt at mocking Spike's accent just made the kid sound like one of the poofters from Oxford "–is about?"

Spike laughed and pulled out one of the stolen cigarette packets. "Is it my fault your mates were bloody idiots? That lot," and he gestured contemptuously at the pile of groaning bodies in the middle of the street, "jumped me, just as I was mindin' my own business, looking for a nice bit of nibbly." He pulled his lighter out of his pocket and bent his head down but kept his eyes trained on the boy. "Bunch of babies trying to pretend they're all that, eh? And 'ow 'bout you? 'Ow bad d'you think you are?"

"I've killed a Slayer," the kid said, but he was smart – or at least smarter than the rest of the idiots in this town – and he didn't rush to attack but stood, wary and alert; a real fighter, then, Spike decided – not like that was going to save this kid.

Spike laughed and dropped his cigarette and moved, lightening fast across the intervening space; he had the kid kissing dirt before the cigarette landed.

"So you're the one who spoiled my fun," he whispered into the kid's ear. "And here I was looking to make my kill count three."


	11. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Angelus, Willow, fish)

The biggest problem was that she didn't have any pets – just those idiots she ran around with, and he couldn't use them for this; he had something better in mind for them – and while Spike might say he was stuck in a rut, Angelus had always believed in that old saw about not fixing what wasn't broken.

She had no pets, but the little witch did, and Angelus hummed softly to himself as he strung them all together – all the little fishes laid out in a row.


End file.
